By Jason Kim: Picture: Gerry Weber World (HalleWestfalen – WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck (31-1, 23 KO’s) will be making his sixth defense of his World Boxing Organization title on April 2nd against 41-year-old former WBC cruiserweight champion Giacobbe Fragomeni (27-3-1, 11 KO’s) at the Gerry Weber Stadium, Halle, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. Fragomeni is going into this fighting limping along with his career after having been beaten in two out of his last three fights.

It’s unclear whether Fragomeni has been picked out for Huck because of the fact that he’s not fighting well or that because he’s one of the better known fighters that the WBO has ranked, while at the same time he doesn’t provide the same kinds of risks that contenders like Denis Lebedev and Alexander Frenkel would present for Huck. In point of fact, Huck just beat Lebedev by a controversial 12 round decision in Germany last December and few people, including his own German fans, felt that Huck won that fight. Huck’s promoters have done him no favors by choosing not to put Huck back in with Lebedev so that he could prove that he’s the better fighter and that he was given a gift decision by the judges while fighting in his adopted country of Germany.

By not fighting Lededev immediately, Huck is seen as an impostor, a non-champion holding a paper belt, by many fans. Huck will likely be forced to fight Lebedev in the future if/when the cruiserweight Super Six tournament is put together by Huck’s promoters. However, don’t count on Huck being put back in with Lebedev before that. He’s going to be matched against guys like Fragomeni for the time being.

Huck had this to say about Fragomeni at Wednesday’s press conference: “There is a reason I am the champion and not you. I am better and stronger and I will put you down. This is where I grew up, so I will have a lot of fans supporting me and I will deliver them a spectacular night of boxing.”

It doesn’t speak much for Huck that he’s fighting a guy that’s lost two out of his last three fights and is 41. Huck would be better off facing Lebedev. if not him, at least trying to fight Steve Cunningham, who dominated Huck and stopped in the 12th round in the 2007. At least those guys aren’t in their 40s like Fragomeni.